Homebrew Hotly Anticipated GTA III Dreamcast Homebrew Port Gets First Public Alpha

It’s Thinking…​

It seems like we’re heading into 2025 with an unexpected but welcome start, in news no one saw coming, tremendous progress is finally made for the Grand Theft Auto III Dreamcast Project, making for a surprise Christmas gift, and a great way to start off the year too!

This port has been in the works for a long time but now it finally gets its first official public alpha, showing off a lot of amazing, Dreamcast-exclusive little things, including puddle reflections! Showcasing many of the quirks unique to the console itself!

A Classic Game on a Classic Console​

Not only are you getting a new way to enjoy a timeless classic, but the unsung hero of the sixth generation, the Dreamcast, gets a port that was only thought to be simply a mere dream!

Both Grand Theft Auto III and the Dreamcast are classics worth remembering in their own right. Combining them creates unimaginable wonder! Except you no longer need to imagine!

Time to Cast Away Your Fears, as Dreams Do Come True!​

This one small step for Grand Theft Auto III, an already legendary classic, but one giant leap for the Dreamcast homebrew community. What was once thought of being a mere fantasy is now playable on real hardware. You can find a link to it on the repo.

It’s hard to believe a 24-year old dream has manifested itself in playable form, and this is only the beginning because as previously mentioned, this is but an alpha!

We can only imagine what the rest of the project has in store. Not only is this a historic cornerstone, but it opens up the doors for possibilities we could not even humor to contemplate! We wish the best for the development team, and hope for a great 2025!

Got any homebrew recommendations in mind? Cast away your dreams in the comment section below!

 

[Falco Girgis]

Wow, thanks for all of the support, guys! I'm one of the developers! Will be sharing this with the rest of the team.

Couple things to note... Yep, we have 16MB of system RAM on a Dreamcast while the PS2 has 32MB; HOWEVER, keep in mind the PS2 only has 4MB of VRAM without hardware texture compression (while DC has 8MB with VQ compression). This means that a portion of the 32MB of system RAM must be used as texture swap space to extend the 4MB of VRAM, meaning the PS2 isn't actually using all 32MB for just system tasks.

It's been pretty interesting, given how fitting into RAM was the name of the fight initially, yet here we are now pulling in VMU drivers and about to pull in mouse + keyboard drivers for PC control support...

Oh! And don't forget! If you're playing with a Dreamcast controller adapter such as BlueRetro, note that you the DC version (unlike PS2) will give you full dual-analog stick controls with free camera when walking around, provided you're connecting a dual-analog controller to your DC!

Oh, and one more note... Yes, the CDROM streaming performance isn't anything to write home about; however, that's just not really something we've focused on yet as a team. It will definitely be improving, and I believe a commit to improve just made it into the codebase last night from skmp.

 

[Yousef]

I can see that I'll be starting the new year with waaaay too many things on the list that I should play, lol

Hope it ends up being a pretty cool port, when it's finished. Fingers crossed.

The relatable backlog struggle. Too real.

 

[DunkeyKong]

Wow, thanks for all of the support, guys! I'm one of the developers! Will be sharing this with the rest of the team.

Couple things to note... Yep, we have 16MB of system RAM on a Dreamcast while the PS2 has 32MB; HOWEVER, keep in mind the PS2 only has 4MB of VRAM without hardware texture compression (while DC has 8MB with VQ compression). This means that a portion of the 32MB of system RAM must be used as texture swap space to extend the 4MB of VRAM, meaning the PS2 isn't actually using all 32MB for just system tasks.

It's been pretty interesting, given how fitting into RAM was the name of the fight initially, yet here we are now pulling in VMU drivers and about to pull in mouse + keyboard drivers for PC control support...

Oh! And don't forget! If you're playing with a Dreamcast controller adapter such as BlueRetro, note that you the DC version (unlike PS2) will give you full dual-analog stick controls with free camera when walking around, provided you're connecting a dual-analog controller to your DC!

Oh, and one more note... Yes, the CDROM streaming performance isn't anything to write home about; however, that's just not really something we've focused on yet as a team. It will definitely be improving, and I believe a commit to improve just made it into the codebase last night from skmp.

Post automatically merged: Jan 5, 2025

Wow, thanks for all of the support, guys! I'm one of the developers! Will be sharing this with the rest of the team.

Couple things to note... Yep, we have 16MB of system RAM on a Dreamcast while the PS2 has 32MB; HOWEVER, keep in mind the PS2 only has 4MB of VRAM without hardware texture compression (while DC has 8MB with VQ compression). This means that a portion of the 32MB of system RAM must be used as texture swap space to extend the 4MB of VRAM, meaning the PS2 isn't actually using all 32MB for just system tasks.

It's been pretty interesting, given how fitting into RAM was the name of the fight initially, yet here we are now pulling in VMU drivers and about to pull in mouse + keyboard drivers for PC control support...

Oh! And don't forget! If you're playing with a Dreamcast controller adapter such as BlueRetro, note that you the DC version (unlike PS2) will give you full dual-analog stick controls with free camera when walking around, provided you're connecting a dual-analog controller to your DC!

Oh, and one more note... Yes, the CDROM streaming performance isn't anything to write home about; however, that's just not really something we've focused on yet as a team. It will definitely be improving, and I believe a commit to improve just made it into the codebase last night from skmp.

What! You're one of the developers? Nice to meet you sir!
Thank you for your help with the rest of the team, we really appreciated it. Big respect to all of you!

 

[Yousef]

Wow, thanks for all of the support, guys! I'm one of the developers! Will be sharing this with the rest of the team.

Couple things to note... Yep, we have 16MB of system RAM on a Dreamcast while the PS2 has 32MB; HOWEVER, keep in mind the PS2 only has 4MB of VRAM without hardware texture compression (while DC has 8MB with VQ compression). This means that a portion of the 32MB of system RAM must be used as texture swap space to extend the 4MB of VRAM, meaning the PS2 isn't actually using all 32MB for just system tasks.

It's been pretty interesting, given how fitting into RAM was the name of the fight initially, yet here we are now pulling in VMU drivers and about to pull in mouse + keyboard drivers for PC control support...

Oh! And don't forget! If you're playing with a Dreamcast controller adapter such as BlueRetro, note that you the DC version (unlike PS2) will give you full dual-analog stick controls with free camera when walking around, provided you're connecting a dual-analog controller to your DC!

Oh, and one more note... Yes, the CDROM streaming performance isn't anything to write home about; however, that's just not really something we've focused on yet as a team. It will definitely be improving, and I believe a commit to improve just made it into the codebase last night from skmp.

Wow! It’s an honor seeing you here! Appreciate the in-depth insight too! Wasn’t expecting one of the devs commenting on my article today, I feel rather humbled haha. Curious how you stumbled across this haha. Thanks for the comment and sharing though!
Wish you guys best of luck! It is a truly tremendous honor meeting you!

 

[Azuris]

Wow, thanks for all of the support, guys! I'm one of the developers! Will be sharing this with the rest of the team.

.

Ha, what an Honor.

All deserved, it just is an incredible archivment

Thank you for explaining further, these aspects are really interesting.
I love reading about the technical side and how the issues are solved by clever programming.
It is something of a nerdy odyssey haha

I have to admit, i had no idea the Dreamcast had more V-Ram, actually a good Design Step (looking at the bottleneck of the N64 with its Textures)

@Spike Give this man a custom title, something as Arch Mage, the witchcraft he and his colleges have done is b beyond mortal understanding.

 

[ZombieFish]

For real. Incredible job. I think this work is more impressive than DOOM on [insert basic smart device].

 

[Benjamillion]

Looking forward to playing this on Redream, it's mindblowing how a group of indie programmers will go above and beyond to make something possible